


Power In Her Hands

by enkelimagnus



Series: RarePair Challenge [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Head of the Institute Isabelle Lightwood, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Seelie Court, Seelie King Meliorn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23962360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: Things have changed since the death of the Seelie Queen.Isabelle visits the Seelie Court, her Seelie King.
Relationships: Isabelle Lightwood/Meliorn
Series: RarePair Challenge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732636
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: Shadowhunters Challenges - Rare Pairs





	Power In Her Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Shadowhunters Challenges: RarePairs Edition!
> 
> It was incredibly fun to write, and the wonderful Em (thatnerdemily) was very kind to lend me an eye and look it over for me!

Things have changed since the death of the Seelie Queen. 

Isabelle doesn’t walk into the Seelie realm through the back door anymore; she walks into it through the main entrance, the one that leads directly next to the palace. The one she never used to take before. 

Leaves, the colors of sunset, gather at the foot of the great arched bridge over which a street has been built. The entrance is underneath the old, cream-colored stone, darkened by age and the constant pollution of the mundane world. 

More leaves stick wetly to the lambskin of her thigh-high boots as she walks into the darkness under the bridge. She takes step after step, and every time the cluster of leaves stick further up her body. Soon, her legs are covered by leaves from the tip of her toe to her thigh. She can feel her body half into the Seelie Realm already. 

Wind blows more leaves onto her. They stick now to her torso, to the dress she’s wearing and the jacket on top of that. Soon, the first leaf gets onto her cleavage, cold and wet and disgusting. It hasn’t rained in New York in weeks. 

Isabelle struggles not to blink away the hand-sized red maple leaf that covers one of her eyes. Her mouth is covered by more of them, keeping her from breathing properly, a barrier from the air. She keeps walking. Once the last inch of her body is covered in leaves, she feels herself pulled into the Seelie Court.

Fingers pry the leaves from her eyes. She blinks open. A Seelie girl, hair braided with flowers, is standing above her. Isabelle doesn’t know how to describe the look in the girl’s eyes. Animosity? Curiosity? A mix of both? 

Seelie-Clave relations haven’t gotten much better since Clary’s departure. Though the rest of the Shadow World has settled into a sort of peace, with some distinct improvements when it comes to Downworlder rights all over the world, Seelies have kept their gates closed, even more so than before.

Jonathan was a Shadowhunter, despite the demon blood. And many Seelies are still upset that he killed their Queen. Even if the new Monarch is much more to Isabelle’s liking. 

She sits up from where she’s appeared, right before the Seelie Palace’s gate, in the piles of leaves. The Seelie girl stares at her, awaiting something. Maybe a reason why she’s here. 

“I’m here to see the Seelie King,” Isabelle says, not without snap in her tone. 

The Seelie girl’s lips curl back on themselves to show long, sharp, villiform teeth. Isabelle sighs softly. She’s used to this now. She’s used to what it’s like to visit the King.

“I’m Isabelle Lightwood,” she continues.

The girl freezes and hides away her teeth. Good. Isabelle peels leaves from her long, flowing hair. She’s let it grow a little more now and it reaches down to her lower back. She likes the look it gives her. And the King likes it as well.

“The Queen of the New York Nephili Court,” the girl hisses. 

She must be very young, Isabelle realizes. Only the young Seelies call her the Queen of the New York Nephili Court. They haven’t yet been explained that the hierarchy of the Clave is not the hierarchy of the Seelie Realm. 

Isabelle hums in reply.

The doors to the Seelie Palace open as Isabelle steps up to them. She smiles. Outside, she forgets what it feels like to be powerful like she is in the Seelie Realm. Now, handmaidens buzz around her to take her jacket and take the leaves off of her clothing. They were wet and that water has seeped into the fabric of her dress, leaving it stained in places, almost see-through in others. 

She shoos them away and they disperse like flies. Isabelle can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of her lips. 

“Is he holding court?” Isabelle asks the girl that met her at the gate. 

The girl nods. 

Isabelle starts walking down the corridor of the palace. It’s overgrown by vines and plants, flowers as large as her head blossoming around the pillars that keep the high, vaulted ceilings up. Isabelle doesn’t stop to look at the flowers anymore. She knows this place better than all other Shadowhunters.

She walks into the Seelie Courtroom. There’s a small warlock man, his antlers too heavy for his head, talking to the man that sits on the throne of the Seelie Monarch. 

His eyes snap from the warlock to her immediately as she steps through the room. They’re dark, sharp, and they roam over her body, over the whip on her wrist and the seraph blade in her thigh holster. She’s the only Shadowhunter allowed her weapons in the court. Perk of being the King’s Consort, she guesses.

She’s earned that title, been through all of the trials of the Seelie Court, proved her value as his Consort. She’s been chosen by him and she’s been trialed by his people. They don’t really get to complain and demand anything of her, anymore.

The King smiles at her, a secretive smile only for her. Isabelle smiles back at him. The Seelie Crown rests on his head, hair strands wrapped and braided around his face and around the wood of the crown. The blue highlights he’s always worn peek through the darkness of the headdress. He looks beautiful.

The Court falls silent, everyone staring at her. She walks to the throne and stands in front of him. The warlock is entirely forgotten by everyone. He doesn’t dare speak up against her. No one does when they learn who she is.

The King stands from his throne. The robe he wears over his clothing unfolds around him like the leaves that covered her as she walked into the realm. He holds out a hand for her and she takes it. He pulls her to him, her body hitting his hard, his hands already leaving hers to grab at her waist and keep her close.

She tilts her head back. He kisses her. His lips are demanding against her and she lets herself be conquered just for this very public moment. They both know the dynamics aren’t the same once they’re in private. In front of the realm, she’s his Consort and he’s the King. Power is in his hands.

The last time she tried to take power in public, he took her on the throne, in front of every Seelie of the palace. He told her to watch their faces as he showed them, and her, that she was his Consort, not the Queen. She still remembers the stinging humiliation. 

When he pulls away from her, she chases after him for more, pliant against him. Only for him. He smiles at her, a promise of later in his eyes.

The faces of the Seelies in his court are all scarred now. Now that he’s King, they have all cut out their plants and vines, sacrificing them and punishing themselves to emulate the way the previous Queen punished him. Isabelle presses a kiss to his cheek. 

She sits by his side the rest of the audience, until he decides he’s had enough and he wants private time. She follows him back towards his bedchambers. The door slams shut behind them, and they’re alone.

“Isabelle,” he breathes, and she grins at him. 

“Meliorn,” she replies. “That sure was a display of power, out there.” 

“Hm,” is all he says, and his hands are already pulling at the zipper of her dress. 

She swats his hand away harshly. “The girl at the gate was rude to me,” she continues, unzipping her dress and stepping out of it. She’s in her underwear now and the thigh-high boots that she’s still wearing. 

Meliorn presses a kiss against her collarbone and she lets him. “You taste like humus,” he whispers. “As if you’ve slept naked onto the ground of the Wander Woods again.” 

Isabelle chuckles. Her fingers untangle his braids and strands from the crown. She makes quick work of the hairstyle that keeps the crown on his head seamlessly. 

“I’ll have to renew your connection to the Woods soon,” she hums, finishing to take the crown from him. “It’s fading.” 

“Whenever you wish, Isabelle,” he speaks against her skin, kissing and licking patterns onto her cleavage, the swell of her breasts. Her nipples are still covered by her bra. He knows better than to try to take it off when she’s taking power from him.

She tosses away the crown, accentuating her carelessness for the symbol of his power. She knows he loves it. 

“Not today,” she shrugs. “I have to go back to the Institute,” she hums. “They do need me to lead them.” 

Meliorn smirks at her. “And you lead them so beautifully, my dear.” 

Isabelle shrugs off the compliment. She pushes him back towards the bed.

“I’ll make sure no one is ever rude to you again,” he promises. “Unless you want to punish some of them, sometimes.” 

Isabelle shakes her head. “I don’t get off on punishing. You do,” she reminds him.

Meliorn grins as he undoes his robe and takes off his clothes. He makes quick work of it, even if there are a bit more layers to his outfits than to hers. Her dress is discarded on the floor and so is his crown, laying sideways onto a bench. 

She slides onto the bed, sighing softly. “Do you remember when I came to your home, that small tent at the edge of the wood, and we would fuck for information?” She asks, her fingers tracing patterns onto the sheets of the bed. 

“I do,” Meliorn smiles. “It was a lifetime ago.” 

She nods. He gets into bed as well, settles close to her. She moves, straddling him now. She can see the scars of his torso and the regrowing vines in his flesh. Sometimes she wonders if they hurt. She’s asked him before and he offered to grow some in her body, to see what it would be like. She refused. She’s not ready to be more of a Seelie.

With every time she renews her connection to the Woods, she becomes a little less of a Shadowhunter, a little more of a Seelie. She’s been told that, one day, she might not be able to use her weapons and stele anymore. One day, she will be too much of a Seelie for the Clave. 

She dreads that day. She spaces out her renewals as much as possible and she always makes sure that she’s not fertile when she visits him. A Seelie King doesn’t need an heir and she doesn’t need to be even more of a fey from it. 

She looks down at his face again and gently caresses it. Her King. 

“I need information again,” she says quietly.

His grin is brighter than the New York sun in August.


End file.
